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Bangladeshi garment workers and the work of BGMEA

Chittagong, 19 September 2016 — The readymade garments sector (RMG) in Bangladesh has been making crucial contribution to the country and its economy, accounting for 81% of the total export earnings of the country. Apart from being the major earner of foreign currency, the RMG sector creates employment for over 4 million people, the vast majority of whom are women. See more.

Bangladeshi garment workers and the work of BGMEA

Preyanka Chowdhury, Chittagong Community Manager

Chittagong, 19 September 2016

Functional since 1983, The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) is one of the largest trade associations in the country representing the readymade garment industry. The major focus of BGMEA has been to ensure the promotion and facilitation of the apparel industry through policy advocacy to the government, services to members, ensuring workers’ rights, and social compliance at factories.

Apart from ensuring sustainable growth of the garments industry in Bangladesh through the adoption of various strategic policies, BGMEA emphasizes the legitimate rights and privileges of garment workers. As part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), BGMEA ensures future financial solvency and economic independence of individuals by casting a special focus on insurance schemes for workers and staff in this sector. Additionally, BGMEA ensures greater human capital and empowerment through skill development programs for garment workers through several training centers spread around the country.

Catering to 60,000 garment workers per year, BGMEA runs twelve health centers that provide free healthcare facilities and medicine in Chittagong and Dhaka. Various awareness programs on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, reproductive health and use of contraceptives are also conducted regularly. They also operate a fully-equipped hospital in Chittagong which caters to the workers of BGMEA-member factories.

Along with healthcare facilities, the BGMEA encourages literacy for the children of the garment workers by operating five schools, where free books, stationary, and scholarship facilities for meritorious students are provided. The Association also extends free or affordable housing for the workers of member factories. In collaboration with the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA), the BGMEA have recently constructed a workers dormitory that can accommodate 3000 workers.

The BGMEA’s member-factories are compelled to work towards social development of their employees as part of their commitment to the Association’s principles. The factories operate free in-house medical facilities and equipped day care centers for the children of their workers. Many garment factories stand out by offering services and benefits that enrich the lives of their workers in many ways. These range from providing opportunities for workers with disabilities and ensuring hospitable working conditions, to providing free lunch, transport, and in some places, subsidized retail shops that sell basic necessities to them, making a real difference in their lives. Close.

Recognizing Informal Trade in City Development Plans

Nairobi, 28 July 2016 — An analysis of the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey of 2004/6 shows that 61% of urban workers in Kenya are informal traders against only 34% formal traders. These include both men and women involved in small/unregistered trade activities such as domestic workers, street vendors, hawkers among others. These informal businesses offer support not only to the larger city economy but also local market level that is affordable to low-income households/slum families. See more.

Recognizing Informal Trade in City Development Plans

Diana Kinya, Nairobi Community Manager

Nairobi, 28 July 2016

An analysis of the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey of 2004/6 shows that 61% of urban workers in Kenya are informal traders against only 34% formal traders. These include both men and women involved in small/unregistered trade activities such as domestic workers, street vendors, hawkers among others. These informal businesses offer support not only to the larger city economy but also local market level that is affordable to low-income households/slum families (locally reffered to as “Kadogo economy”). This allows goods to be sold at lowest quantity to an extent that a family can buy packaged sugar enough only for one day unlike in the normal market where the lowest quantity of sugar would be a kilo. This makes it such a vibrant sector in the informal settlements supporting not only the traders system but the residents as well.

Due to its unrecognized nature, informal trade is not planned for in the Nairobi master plan and, therefore, informal economic activities infringe on any open land, such as road reserve, railway reserve, town streets and other undeveloped public/private spaces. They often face numerous evictions from the city officials, and many evenings in Nairobi are characterized by running battles between the street vendors and the city police trying to forcefully evict the traders from the streets. However, immediately, as soon as the police leave, the traders get back to the streets.

"Every time I see the 'kanjo' chasing the roadside traders in the estate and in the CBD, I cry at the lack of vision in us as Africans. Their existance tells us that there is need for the role that they play. Contrary to the popular assumption, Nairobi has enough space. We have not learned to utilize it. With a little imagination, the roadside traders can be offered better facilities for which to carry out their trade," says Miss Maina, a community organizer working with informal traders in Kibera where the railway reserve has been infringed upon by informal traders. These traders have been involved in carrying out daily activities, including cooking, fast food, and selling clothes and other wares along the reserve, resulting in operation derailment accidents, deaths and loss of property.

In 2010 the Kenya Railways Corpration through the suport of World Bank while working together with informal traders in Kibera and Mukuru slums saw the need and an opportunity to develop innovative ideas that could reclaim the railway reserve being infringed upon by traders while at the same time giving them a chance to operate. The project aimed to establish an extended safety corridor for railway operations and maintenance in Mukuru and Kibera slums. Through establishment of a special planning area, the project developed a relocation action plan (RAP) that allowed for the land sharing of the railway reserve and set a portion of it to provide residential units for households and business stalls for informal traders who were operating on the reserve.

Through a negotiated model, the project was able to incoporate informal traders within the railway renovation plan by providing 1740 stalls for all the informal traders who were trading on the reserve and 30 units for informal schools to enable slum mothers get day care services for their children while working on their businesses.

By incoporating informal traders in its railway upgrading plan, the Kenya Railways Corporation has gone ahead to demonstarte that it is possible to achieve inclusive development with minimal disruptions of informal sources of livelihoods. The project was able to mitigate against social economic impacts of relocating the traders. While discussing with the beneficiaries on the difference between the initial and current situation, Mr Kyatu, one of the vendors said, “There is a great difference. Now we have a cleaner and more organized environment to work from. There are also security lights and we can therefore do business until late at night.” Mr Kyatu says that this kind of inclusive development not only ensures better working conditions for them but also safeguards their livelihoods against long-term hardship.Close.

A holy hand for informal workers in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro, 27 July 2016 — Mão Santa (Portuguese for "Holy Hand"), a social business started in a university, has been drawning attention in Rio de Janeiro for successfully treating two gaps in the city by providing quality services of repair and maintenance and the formalization of informal workers who usually offer these services. All this, plus using simple technologies, empowering women, and focusing on local development.See more.

A holy hand for informal workers in Rio de Janeiro

Andréa Azambuja, Rio de Janeiro Community Manager

Rio de Janeiro, 27 July 2016

According to the Institute of Labor and Society Studies (IETS), approximately 1.5 million professionals work in the informal service sector in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In the south side and the city center alone, there are about fourty-one thousand people in need of a helping hand to get opportunities, maintain customers, and take advantage of the services offered.

This kind of push forward is offered by Mão Santa (Portuguese for "Holy Hand"), a social business that uses technology to ensure quality in services such as remodeling and home maintenance (hydraulic, electrical, coatings, masonry, and painting for example) – a line of work that's usually characterized by amateurism.

Focusing on local development, Mão Santa connects supply and demand through an online platform while ensuring the quality of delivery and commitment of professionals, and important difference maker in the industry. The company takes on the commitment because, as well as mediating the relationship, it promotes the qualification of its network partners with behavioral training, coaching, technical courses, and free consulting for formalization, helping partners to open their own small busineses.

It also develops partnership networks with the Junior Company PUC-Rio – a consultant agency formed by students from different courses at PUC university that offers interdisciplinary solutions in management and strategy. With the University Pastoral Anchieta PUC-Rio, the partnerships bridge the gap for students to make internships or volunteer at the start up. Another piece of the puzzle is Rede Cidadã, an NGO that invests in social work and among numerous fronts, and applies behavioral methodologies that develop and reinforce skills.

Another partner of note is Mão na Massa, another NGO that qualifies women in a vulnerable situation in the construction sector. For women who are participating, training is free, and when they leave, in addition to the diploma, participants receive personal protective equipment and a kit with tools to help kick start their careers. Besides aiming to generate significant social impact on the lives of workers in general – providing personnel and technical development and income increases – Mão Santa also has the specific goal of including, enhancing, empowering, and disseminating female labor in a mostly male field of work.

Mão Santa is recent, it began at the end of 2014 as as a college project at PUC-Rio and extended to the My Business Future program, which won first place and won the opportunity to be pre-incubated by the incubator Institute Genesis for free from July 2015 to April 2016.

Late last year, the project was among the finalists of the Marathon of Social Business, promoted by the Sebrae, which offers training modules, expert advice and mentoring from experienced social entrepreneurs and, in April this year, passed the selective Shell process youth initiative in 2016, which had more than 750 registered entrepreneurs and offers entrepreneurial skills, support, and encouragement of sustainable social networks for youngsters aged 20 to 34 develop their own businesses.

Until April, Mão Santa was being financed by the team's personal resources; now, to move into a second implementation phase, the group is seeking capital infusion to achieve the scalability of the business, implementing an online platform and developing a mobile app that works by geolocation.

Currently, the company is headquartered in the community Vila Parque da Cidade, where individual and group assistance are provided. It works and assists twenty professionals. The intention is to expand their extensive network of employees and serviced provided by November 2016. Although a bold goal, swift progress has turned a program that once seemed unlikely to flourish into one of the most dynamic and impactful schemes in one of the world’s most important cities.Close.

Photo: Dirce Glória dos Santos, who graduated from Mão na Massa and is now a part owner at Mão Santa. Credits: Paul Alvadia for Agíncia O Dia.

Commercial informality in a formal economy

Mexico City, 26 July 2016 —
In Mexico City, more than a million people are developing an informal commercial activity without access to the regime of taxation and social protection. The President of the Republic launched a program for people to register their commercial activity formally in order to achieve social rights.See more.

Commercial informality in a formal economy

María Fernanda Carvallo, Mexico City Community Manager

Mexico City, 26 July 2016

In Mexico City informal trade is the main source of income for more than one million people who try to carry out their activities in various public spaces in the city. By developing commercial activity without being linked to formal economic dynamics, people do not have access to social benefits from federal programs. On the other hand, economic analysis indicates that labor-related informality in a country limits the expansion of businesses and hurts the welfare of workers and their families.

In response, the federal government has launched the "Grow Together" program to incorporate changes included in the recent tax reform, and ultimately dovetailing with Social Security. This program is a synergy of state and municipal authorities, business organizations, and academic institutions. According to President Enrique Peña Nieto, the strategy aims to ensure that people who have their own business transition to formality in order to enjoy the benefits of social programs such as:

To move to the formality scheme, is a gradual inclusion. The owners and their employees can enjoy the social benefits during the first ten years. Over time, registrants will receive discounts on social security contributions; for example, in the first two years registered individuals will pay only half of these fees. Beneficiaries will receive a discount of one hundred percent of income tax payment the first year, in the second year it will be 90 percent, and so on.

The “Growing Together” strategy hopes to see both Mexico and its citizens growing together with this program, pairing formal employment with social value and upward mobility.Close.

A voice for Mumbai’s domestic workers

Mumbai, 25 July 2016 — The majority of India’s 4.2 million domestic workers are women employed in urban areas. Many of them work in multiple homes a day, and on average earn far below the minimum wage. The National Domestic Workers’ Movement is lobbying for better social security and welfare provision for workers in Mumbai. See more.

A voice for Mumbai’s domestic workers

Ashali Bhandari, Mumbai Community Manager

Mumbai, 25 July 2016

In India, 84% of the non-agrarian work force is employed in the “informal” (also known as the unorganized) sector. The informal sector covers a vast range of employment, ranging from work that occurs in unregistered enterprises to work within formal organizations, where employers don’t guarantee labourers any social protection.

Over four million labourers of the workers in the informal sector are employed as domestic workers. These could be part-time, full-time, or live-in workers who are involved in tasks like childcare, cooking, cleaning, and/or hospitality at home. 70% of India’s domestic workers are based in urban areas, and 90% are women.

In Mumbai, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences conducted a study, which highlights the vulnerability of women working as domestic workers in the city: 56% of female domestic workers belong to marginalized and historically disadvantaged communities (Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, or Other Backward Classes) and over 50% are illiterate. Almost all women do not have a formal contract of employment with their employer(s) and they earn an average of Rs.1964 (approximately USD 30) per month, despite most women working in 2 to 3 homes per day. Furthermore, over 70% of the women working are in debt and have outstanding loans.

Domestic work in metropolises like Mumbai is rarely unionized. Over the last three decades, the National Domestic Workers’ Movement (NDWM) has been advocating for the rights of domestic workers, children in domestic work and migrants in domestic work through capacity building programs and lobbying efforts. The organization organizes meetings in different localities to teach domestic workers about their rights as employees. These settings also allow the women to discuss experiences and support each other with challenges they face at the workplace.

In 2008, the Supreme Court of India mandated the inclusion of domestic workers with the “Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act”, which ensures the formation of state welfare boards around the country. These Welfare Boards are required to provide benefits like family medical insurance, financial support for education, and pension schemes.

In 2012, the Maharashtra Domestic Workers’ Welfare Board (Mumbai would be in the purview of this board) began to register domestic workers and began to provide some of the benefits stipulated in the 2008 Act. However, by 2014 schemes such as scholarships for children were abruptly ended and problems in the Labour Department led to a glitch in registration for domestic workers with the Welfare Board. NDWM is currently lobbying for separate laws for female domestic workers that would include: weekly holidays, paid-leave, and bonuses. They are also lobbying for social security for the 50% of domestic workers who are migrants to Mumbai. In May 2016, NDWM met with 60 members of the Legislative Assembly in the Mumbai Region to submit an amendment to the Maharashtra Domestic Workers Welfare Board Act, which would require employers to comply with the Minimum Wage Act.

In the future, the NDWM aims to shift the Welfare Board Act to a Workers’ Rights-based Act, with a grievance redressal system to ensure that employers cannot exploit domestic workers. The inclusion of domestic workers and workers employed in the informal labour markets in welfare systems is imperative in order to bring a better quality of life to the 84% of Indians employed in the unorganized sector. Close.

Training and legal protection to strengthen unorganized workers

Delhi, 22 July 2016 — Sensitizing unorganized workers in garment factories in and around Delhi and offering them legal support is not enough to protect them from exploitative practices that deny them a living wage. An effort to reform the legal architecture and give it teeth is the need of the hour, discovers Delhi-based NGO Society of Labour and Development.See more.

Training and legal protection to strengthen unorganized workers

Mukta Naik, Delhi Community Manager

Delhi,22 July 2016

Delhi has been at the epicentre of a number of local and national movements to protect the livelihoods of informal sector and unorganized workers like street vendors, domestic workers and waste workers. At the same time, the voices of unorganized workers in the formal sector are barely heard in the debate around informal work.

The National Capital Region (NCR) is an important hub for the textile industry in India, which employs 35 million people nationwide and accounts for 12% of India’s GDP. The textile and clothing cluster in and around Delhi, along with Bangalore, Tirupur, Chennai and Jaipur, contributes 70% of India’s exports in this sector. A key cost saving strategy for garment factories is the employment of large numbers of informal sector workers through a chain of contractors, to whom they provide no employment guarantees or social security benefits. The issues faced by these unorganized workers within the formal sector are distinct from problems that informal sector workers experience.

In the garment factories of Gurgaon and Noida informal workers, mostly poor rural migrants from the northern Indian States of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, commonly face wage theft in various forms- under payment, delayed payments as well as non-payment of wages. Combined with malpractices like forced overtime, this means that workers barely earn a living wage. Further, multiple levels of subcontracting allow employers to be barely accountable in the eyes of the law. As Shikha Bhattacharjee from the Society of Labour and Development (SLD) puts it, “neoliberal deregulation is mapped on the bodies of workers”, for whom inadequate wages is not only an economic blow but also results in low calorific intake, exhaustion, sickness and poor medical care.

To make matters worse, in a clear violation of the Indian Constitution (which guarantees freedom of association), unorganized factory workers are not permitted to form collectives (see SLD report). Testimonies from NCR made at the National Peoples Tribunal on Living Wage for Garment Workers in Asia in 2012 reveal that a climate of fear is actively maintained in factories through frequent scolding and abusive language to prevent workers from raising their voices. Workers reported loss of work, death threats, violence and abuse to the Tribunal, of which SLD was a key organizer, as consequences of union involvement. Denying the ability to negotiate through formal channels leaves these informal workers vulnerable, legally and financially. One of the consequences, Shikha points out, is the fluid mobility of workers across workspaces, which further reduces the claims of migrant workers to the city space.

SLD works to intervene in two distinct ways. First, in collaboration with grassroots partners like the Mazdoor Ekta Manch, SLD focuses on raising the awareness of workers about their rights through trainings, workshops and public events. Workers are offered knowledge that saves them from exploitation, for example by understanding the consequence of signing on blank papers. They are also trained to construct evidence of employment by maintaining passbooks and saving documents like gate passes and pay slips. Second, SLD operates the Kanooni Salaha Kendra (KSK), a legal counselling cell that guides workers in cases related to wage disputes, violence, sexual harassment and civic rights. In many instances, detailed case files maintained by SLD lawyers have been useful in helping workers get legal resolution to labour disputes.

Through the Tribunal and the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), SLD is using international forums to demand living wages for Asian garment workers. In India, it is advocating legislation to license and register labour brokers, increased funding to strengthen the labor ministry and departments, enforce ILO inspection conventions, recognise and empower trade unions, timely revision of minimum wages and a move towards a more consultative framework to address labour issues. However, specific elements of the recently proposed 2015 Draft Labour Code on Wages that seeks to simplify labour law and create a pro-active climate for investment and industrial growth—like dismantling labour inspections, diminishing oversight from trade unions and undermining legal remedies for workers—do not bode well for the future of unorganized workers. A balanced resolution is the need of the hour to ensure the competitiveness of Indian industry is not built on the exploitation of informal labor.Close.

Inclusive recycling with waste pickers in Medellin?

Medellin, 18 July 2016 — Medellin’s achievement as a poster city for urban development was achieved, according to many, by promoting inclusive urban planning and listening to the voices of everybody, including the most disadvantaged. Does that hold true for the situation of waste pickers today? See more.

Inclusive recycling with waste pickers in Medellin?

Olga Abizaid and Federico Parra, Guest Contributors

Medellin, 21 July 2016

Medellin has recently been touted as a poster city for urban development. In recent years, the city has overcome the daunting urban economic and security challenges it faced in the 1980s and has evolved into a vibrant metropolis. The feat, according to many, was achieved by promoting inclusive urban planning and listening to the voices of everybody – including those in greater disadvantage.

Among them are the 3,663 waste pickers who make their living by collecting recyclables in the city – sometimes door-to-door, most times on the streets. The environmental impact of their work is generally not recognized, yet it provides a breather to the city’s landfill and raw materials for industries, improving the lives of the 2.5 million people living in the city.

In the last decade, however, there have been some changes. Waste pickers in Bogota, Colombia’s capital city, have made great strides on a national level – efforts that are now being seen around the country. Bogota’s waste pickers’ legal advocacy and the resulting pronouncements of Colombia’s Constitutional Court have led to the development of a national legal framework that mandates the inclusion and remuneration of waste pickers for the services they provide to society.

“If we looked back ten years, back then nobody knew who we were and what waste pickers did. Now, with what has happened and because of the legal framework, [we] are now recognized by the municipality,” says a women waste picker leader from Medellin.

Medellin’s municipality has made some strides towards the inclusion of waste pickers. Some of the policies include the development of the 2013 census, the provision of ID cards for waste pickers and capacity building for their organizations. Medellin has also entrusted some waste pickers’ organizations with the management of collection centers in the city. And there is some level of coordination with the municipal waste management company, EMVARIAS. Medellin was also a pioneer in engaging waste pickers’ organizations in the discussions around the municipal solid waste management master plans – even before that became mandatory with the issuance of National Decree 2981 of 2013.

But inclusion remains an unfinished task. For starters, most waste pickers are still not organized. And even for those who are, the new legal framework states that to become public service providers, waste pickers’ organizations need to comply with many formal requirements. To meet them, they need, among other things, to develop managerial and accounting skills, as well as the ability to relate with end users. They also need to acquire the necessary infrastructure to deliver recycling services.

The Asociación Nacional de Recicladores (ANR) and the Asociación de Recicladores de Antioquia, in tandem with support organizations like WIEGO and Fundación Familia, are providing local organizations with training on the legal framework and the requirements that must be met, and sharing experiences on how to negotiate for payment for their services.

While Medellin’s master plan foresees some support for three years, it is important that the city take into consideration the realities of the organizations, which are at different stages in their organizing processes and in their process to comply with the municipal requirements to become public service providers, and plan for adequate support and timelines for waste pickers’ transition towards formalization.

That is not waste pickers’ only worry: they fear that while they are working towards meeting the requirements, recycling may be given to other actors. For the formalization process to be effective, it is important that waste pickers’ livelihoods be protected during the transition. Formalization cannot be done overnight; it should be a gradual process, as was stated in the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Recommendation 204 on the transition from the informal to the formal economy. In the process to include waste pickers into solid waste management, the city government in Medellin should develop a solid work of engagement and accompaniment with waste pickers’ organizations. Only by doing this, will it ensure waste pickers will be able to meet the requirements demanded of them.

“We need to make them understand that there are things that we waste pickers can do directly, and that if even if we cannot do them, we want to be taken into consideration to give feedback and provide ideas,” says a Medellin waste picker.

Medellin’s past urban achievements are grounded in the fact that inclusion of disadvantaged populations is key to building the city’s prosperity. Right now, the city government has a unique opportunity to make a difference for waste pickers if it stays true to its original mantra of making a better and more equal city for everybody. Close.

Street vendors in Cali: looking for solutions

Cali, 20 July 2016 — The lack of job opportunities in the formal sector, the surprisingly high degree of satisfaction of street vendors, and the relatively high incomes that they can obtain are factors that make the fight in Cali to regain control over the public spaces particularly difficult. The attempts at massive relocation undertaken in the 1990s and during the last decade ended up as failures. The current approach adopted by the city is to undertake limited action in specific, highly focused spaces. It's an approach worth investigating. See more.

Street vendors in Cali: looking for solutions

Jorge Bela, Cali Community Manager

Cali, 20 July 2016

There are over 8,000 informal street vendors in Cali’s downtown area. Their occupation of public space is not free: the often have to pay fees to the mafia or to unscrupulous public officers. These illegal fees can go up to 10 million COP (US$3000) in the most coveted spaces. Their chaotic presence results in uncomfortable, and even dangerous situations for pedestrians, as they must use the streets to move through the city. They are also detrimental to the formal stores that cannot compete as they pay taxes and have other fixed costs. They are also a source of conflict and violent confrontation, as citizens and streets vendors regularly fight for control of the public space.

Attempts at relocating them have been a failure. In the late 90s 289 vendors were relocated to shopping areas, such as the Cali II center. However, the vendors are still to receive the promised property titles to the shops they were assigned. In 2010, a new attempt was made to relocate 2,850 street vendors, but the company that was building and operating the shops went bankrupt and the few who had already moved in had to vacate. It is not surprising that when the city held meetings with the vendors in 2015 to try to undertake some new relocations, the street vendors were not at all interested in the issue.

As the massive relocations proved to be a failure, the current approach is more focused, targeting only specific and well defined areas. One example is the Bulevar del Rio, opened in 2013. The new public space created after the underground tunnel was completed has been constantly monitored, in order to make it impossible for street vendors to move in. Another example is the project currently under way to organize and control the streets vendors at the Plaza de Caycedo. The BRT system, MIO, is also constantly watched, and any vendor caught is penalized with steep fines. Still, for MIO users informal vendors are, together with overcrowding and violence, the most worrying threats for the mass bus system.

Street vending is a particularly difficult challenge for Cali. On the one hand, the city has one of the highest unemployment rates in Colombia: 11.5% (although it is worth noting that has gone down from 13% in the previous year). On the other hand, street vendors claim to have a surprisingly high level of satisfaction regarding their work. A survey made in 2015 showed that only 18% of street vendors in Cali’s downtown area wish to obtain a job in the formal sector. Thirty-five percent of them say that they are quite satisfied with their current situation.

The survey also showed that 86% of the street vendors own their cart, as 57% of them claims that they have one or even two employees. The average monthly income is 1141000 COP for men, and 926000 for women (about US$389 and US$315, respectively). This income is well above the minimum wage in Colombia, which for 2016 is US$235. In addition, 75% of the street vendors have been doing this type of work for under 10 years, which clearly suggests that is a very important destination for the successive waves of immigrants that have arrived to Cali escaping rural violence and poverty.

Finally, it is noteworthy that 95% of street vendors do not belong to any trade organization. This creates difficulties at the time of fighting for their rights, at the same time that makes it almost impossible for the City to reach global agreements with them. The largest organization, albeit still with a small percentage of affiliates, is the Sindicato de Trabajadores Informales de Cali (Sintraviecali).

Micro-credit expands business opportunities for informal workers

Dar es Salaam, 19 July 2016 — Dar es Salaam, just like many other cities in East Africa, is facing an unemployment crisis, especially for youth and women. Approximately 52% of the entire population of Dar es Salaam is formally unemployed. And approximately 11% of the unemployed population in Dar es Salaam earns an income through the informal economy and informal labor market, which is characterized by a lack of social security coverage, lack of written contract documents, lack of health insurance and low wages.See more.

Micro-credit expands business opportunities for informal workers

Jonston Weston, Dar es Salaam Community Manager

Dar es Salaam, 19 July 2016

Dar es Salaam, just like many other cities in East Africa, is facing an unemployment crisis, especially for youth and women. Approximately 52% of the entire population of Dar es Salaam is unemployed. And approximately 11% of the unemployed population in Dar es Salaam earns an income through the informal economy and informal labor market, which is characterized by a lack of social security coverage, lack of written contract documents, lack of health insurance and low wages. The majority of informal workers in Dar es Salaam do not choose to earn their livelihoods in the informal sector because of its attractiveness but rather because they do not have better employment options. Their work is out of necessity for daily survival, and they engage in a variety of livelihoods, including street food vending, water sales, domestic work, and vegetable plantation employment.

Informal workers face many difficulties in their working environments, as they are frequently harassed and troubled, sometimes even arrested by the city police of Dar es Salaam apparent reason. The government and city council of Dar es Salaam has failed to provide lasting support to informal workers that would improve their working situations, livelihood, and collective security.

Although Tanzania has a political goal to become a middle-income country by 2025, informal workers are forgotten in the plan. The present Sustainable Development Goals for the period 2015-2030 are not providing a way on how the situation of informal workers can be improved within a region. National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania (MKUKUTA) highlights employment for women and young people, but there is no direct input of the informal workers in the strategy. As yet until now there is no policy instructions and legislation to directly support and protect informal workers. Instead, the priority of the country is on economic development and job creation efforts, focusing mostly on promoting large-scale infrastructure projects and strengthening the formal sector.

However the SEDIT (Social and Economic Development Initiative of Tanzania), which is a non-governmental organization, has defined its position in MKUKUTA since 2002. It has adopted a tool called the Village Community Banks (VICOBA), a grassroots-based lending scheme with a focus on fostering informal workers to innovate and manage viable income-generating activities through efficient operation of savings and credit services. It is a self-financing scheme needing no external funds as the group members work with their own capital, mobilized through shares and other contributions. The groups are voluntarily formed with about 18 people and start with the weekly share value of 2000 Tsh and above, depending on the needs and economic/financial capability of group members (informal workers).

Normally, VICOBA group members begin to access credit between 14 and 16 weeks of a group's inception. The loans given by VICOBA are normally soft and affordable to the poor (5%- 10% interest rate) and are utilized to support small-scale businesses. The loans range from 500,000 Tsh to 1,000,000 Tsh, depending on the amount available in the group. SEDIT oversees and coordinates all activities, including providing training to the VICOBA group leaders.

Those informal workers who have joined the VICOBA have benefited and are now using small loans to develop their small businesses. VICOBA has helped to transform informal workers’ livelihoods in Dar es Salaam. SEDIT is campaigning to create more groups of the informal workers across the city of Dar es Salaam, creating the possibility for new ways of thinking about and integrating informal workers into the fabric of this growing city.Close.

Involving street vendors in culinary tourism

Surabaya, 18 July 2016 — Street vendors (PKL) are part of the informal economy we often witness in big cities such as Surabaya. They occupy the sidewalks and major roads, disrupting traffic. The city of Surabaya has unique ways of dealing with PKL. They build PKL centers in many spots and include these centers in culinary tourism promotion as part of a plan for economic empowerment targeting the urban poor. See more.

Involving street vendors in culinary tourism

Widya Anggraini, Surabaya Community Manager

Surabaya, 18 July 2016

Global critics say that street vendors (PKL) are considered black spots on the beauty of a city, and should be removed. In the name of city planning, those who are working in the informal sector often receive unfriendly actions, such as demolition of their stalls, forced relocation, and abrupt evictions carried out with violence. The freedom to conduct economic activity is taken away and the working poor, when that happens, get even poorer. Hence, the existence of street vendors requires special attention. The new, current strategy applied by Surabaya could be an example and reference in term of managing street vendors by not violating their right to work. The government organizes street vendors that sell food, and puts them in a center and promotes these centers as culinary tourism destinations in Surabaya.

Surabaya is one of the main gateways for trade in eastern Indonesia due to its strategic location. It has great economic potential and is known as the city of trade and economy. Surabaya develops a stable economic infrastructure that is conducive for doing business. Support for community economic development could be seen from government efforts to empower small and medium enterprises (UMKM). The number of UMKM, and cooperation around them, continues to grow. This shows that the community's economy is improving. UMKM is expected to absorb more of the workforce in coming years. So how can street vendors fit into this economic development? Do they have a place in this growing and changing economy?

The number or street vendors (PKL), according to the Economic Board of Surabaya City Government in 2005, was about 70,000 and it keeps increasing each year. Therefore, since 2004, the government has shown its support by developing PKL centers as part of city planning. Until 2014, the Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Office has built 495 PKL centers. PKL centers consists of food vendors that occupy dedicated place provided by the government. Each center has its own management to ensure that the center is convenient. Moreover, the health department regularly inspects these placea to check on the food PKLs sell, thereby increasing the attraction to more consumers.

Tourism has become a major development program in Surabaya, as there has been a shift in economic priorities toward growing the tourism sector. Surabaya is easily accessible for domestic and international tourists to visit. Therefore, one main important strategy is to design the PKL centers as tourist destinations - especially for food tours. Surabaya is also famous for its food, promising delights and distinctive flavor. In the tourism context, Surabaya has become a pull factor for tourists to come and enjoy meals and snacks in the Surabaya way.

Dedicated places for PKL are expected to encourage creativity, innovation, and confidence of the food vendors in the informal sector, likely leading them to develop local food businesses to be able to compete with imported foods currently flooding the city. In order increase consumer confidence around street vendors, the city government provides assistance on how to maintain cleanliness, attractiveness of vending locations, training on business management, and dissemination of government regulations concerning street vendors so that they no longer infringe on the rules while trading.

The policy to encourage culinary tourism proves that on the one hand it helps to empower the economy of urban poor workers as food vendors by allowing them to continue working. On the other hand, this policy to create PKL centers is a strategic plan to create a better and inclusive city. The main challenge is to conduct proper assessments related to ideal locations for PKL centers to keep pace with evolving tourist hotspots.Close.